mass action handbook
getting your community on the road and into the street

at home during the action

in order to make your trip
effective, a number of activities and tasks need to be done
at home. these activities are opportunities for activists not going
on the trip to have important roles. as you plan each of these activities,
think about inviting folks to help out and how these different tasks could
help them be involved even though they need to be at home with children,
who can't get off from work, elders, people who are injured or ill...
these people may have just the kind of time and resources to do important
at home tasks, such as telephoning, media analysis & outreach, research,
etc.

everyone involved and concerned
about the issues can take an active role in community outreach
before, during, and after the big action. make some fliers early on which
talk about the issues, the trip, and how to get information on the upcoming
teach-in and fundraising events. have lots of copies at meetings, infoshops,
and other locations that activists frequent. if everyone carries a small
stack of fliers with them for a few weeks they'll have a way to get the
word out and give people the info they need to follow up and stay involved.
encourage everyone to think about going on the trip and that there will
be lots of support for them if they want to go.

there
are three main activities that folks at home should be working on while
other folks are traveling to the mass action:

in order to be
able to go the action, activists need a lot of support from
other activists at home. here are some important roles for
activists who can't go on the trip.

lending
vehicles & equipment (radios, cameras,
laptop computers)

donating money for gas

rounding up art supplies

child
care

pet & plant care

bail roundup

legal
support:
one person needs to be willing to commit to being by the phone
and providing legal support for the duration of the action
days. this is a great role for someone who really wants to
be involved in the action but needs to stay home. it's also
a great way to help lovers/partners who are staying home to
feel very involved.

jail solidarity: activists
at home should be ready to make calls to jails, mayors, and
police departments to complain about arrests and police brutality
and to demand release of all protesters without charges. usually,
these phone numbers are on the imc
site set up for the mass action.

at-home media team:
media work needs to be done before, during, and after the
trip. see the media section. but it's
important to keep in mind the special roles for folks at home
during the action. that at-home legal team has several key
roles:

analyze the coverage
and get this news out to other local activists and to the affinity
group at the action: this information can be very empowering!

pressure local and national
media to cover the events accurately

clue local newsmedia
in to stories of interest, such as actions, arrests, or injuries
of activists from the home town

write letters to the
editor about the actions and their significance

send updates on the mass
action and your local action to your local independent media center
(imc). to find your local imc, go to the main imc
page and scroll down the left hand side

advertising the community
report-back: the
community report-back should be planned and advertised while the travelers
are still out of town! that means folks at home need to get a venue and
start advertising right away.

local
solidarity action

one of the forms that growing
international solidarity takes is the simultaneous, coordinated manifestation
of our resistance. it's great to do a local action simultaneous with the
faraway day of action. try using the action
planning sheet.